5.16 Commentary on descartes’ discourse on method and meditations  (Page 5/6)

Saying that the world is not there entirely is like saying that the world is false, only it suggests that instead of generating a false or biased feeling, it is not generating any feeling at all. If a feeling is being generated, something must be there, but you might not know how deceiving that thing is. So ultimately it is best to know a combination of all three things, or the certainty of how true and false something is (and those things related to everything else).

Another question altogether is not whether the world exists, but if the person contemplating if the world exists, exists. Descartes seemed to believe that since he was capable of thought, he existed:

I am, I exist. This is certain. How often? As often as I think. For it might indeed be that if I entirely ceased to think, I should thereupon altogether cease to exist. I am not at present admitting anything which is not necessarily true; and, accurately speaking, I am therefore [taking myself to be] only a thinking thing, that is to say, a mind, an understanding or reason-terms the significance of which has hitherto been unknown to me. I am, then a real thing, and really existent. What thing? I have said it, a thinking thing. (pg 35 the European philosophers)

He says he is “a mind, an understanding or reason” which means that all his thoughts together form this understanding and complete mind. He is not just one understanding, people understand lots of things, but all of them would form who he is. Maybe the understanding of who he is occurs in an instant, and in this instant he is only one understanding, reason or mind. He can spend a lot of time contemplating his existence, or glimpse it in an instant. However, this understanding of who he is he carries with him all of the time, only more in the background then when he is thinking about his existence. So it really is thought that makes him who he is, since he is thinking about himself all of the time, in addition to thinking about and in regular life.

Thought determines who someone is because your thoughts are controlled, and all your thoughts over your lifetime caused your emotional development, which causes you to be who you are. There are also feelings, but since someone cannot control their feelings their feelings aren’t a part of who they really are. Who you really are is someone that is what they want to be, and what they want to be is going to be something they can think about. If you are emotionally damaged you might act in a way you don’t want to, and be presenting yourself to be different from who you really are. That would only cause other people to view you as different from who you are, your thoughts are still intact and you are still who you really are inside (for the most part). Thoughts are controlled and directed; feelings mostly cannot be directed or controlled. Your consciousness is therefore going to be more determined by your thoughts, not your emotions. So it is easy to say that your thoughts understand and/or control who you are, but it is much harder to say that your emotions understand and/or control who you are.